[plug] Re: mail-list vs news

[Alex Nordstrom]

On Saturday, 11 Sep 2004 14:27, Bernd Felsche wrote:
> On Saturday 11 September 2004 12:37, Michael Holland wrote:
> > On Sat, 11 Sep 2004, Bernd Felsche wrote:
> > > You only have to download articles which you find "interesting".
> >
> > I don't think that's an issue for many people any more. But if you
> > do have bandwidth problems, e.g. using GSM-data, you can acheive
> > the same thing with e-mail using IMAP.
>
> Which works how if you're running your own mail server?

I doubt you would be able to download just the headers with NNTP if you 
insist on having your own NNTP server, either.

> The bandwidth I do have (dialup; 250 megabyte/month quota) has
> inherent priorities. Cluttering up a mailbox with a hundred PLUG,
> and hundreds of other mailing list articles every day can obscure
> and divert from important communications.

Being from Sweden, I'm used to dialup being charged by the minute. While 
I certainly never liked that, this "quota" thing you have here seems 
even more evil.

As I am relatively addicted to the Interweb, and preferring to keep the 
variable costs in my cash budget to a minimum, I have never looked at 
anything but unlimited options. Unlimited dialup with a 4-hour hard 
disconnect cycle is less than $17/month if you live in Perth, Broome, 
Bunbury, or Rockingham. Even on a limited student budget, I don't 
consider that a lot.

> Sure; I can use email filters to keep filing stuff away into
> corresponding folders until I have time to read them; but after a
> while, I have a backlog of a thousand unread messages per mailing
> list... and I end up reading almost none of them. I have to manually
> delete the ones I don't want to keep.

Since you appear to be using KMail, why not just use the automatic 
expiry feature for mailing list folders?

The issue of mailing lists versus newsgroups was recently dealt with in 
excruciating detail on debian-user:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/08/thrd10.html#09253
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/09/threads.html#00036

Bottom line: just about all, if not precisely all, of the perceived 
differences between mailing lists and newsgroups are attributable to 
user agents and are independent of transport protocol. It is suggested 
that gnus makes this obvious. From a technical point of view,  protocol 
preference is arbitrary.

Now, I like KMail, which means to read newsgroups, I'd also have to use 
another program, like KNode, but I prefer to use only one program. I 
could still use something like gnus, so the argument doesn't hold up 
from a technical point of view. In my opinion, it's still a relevant 
argument from a personal point of view, though.

My bottom line: It's a religious war; no alternative is technically 
superior. From a personal point of view, I favour mailing lists. If I 
were the maintainer, I'd naturally favour status quo, but if the 
capability and willingness to maintain a dual-protocol forum exists, 
there is obviously nothing wrong with that.

-- 
Alex Nordstrom
http://lx.n3.net/
Please do not CC me in followups; I am subscribed to plug.